I will burn books and slay gods.

"Stop him!" Lin Su rushed towards the short circuit, and flames erupted.

But a short circuit is just a matter of raising your hand.

He opened his palm, revealing a launch port, from which a white beam of energy shot out.

It's not fire, it's not a conceptual attack, it's pure high-energy particles.

Lin Su's flames were instantly pierced, the energy beam grazing her side and burning a charred wound. She groaned and fell to the ground.

"Lin Su!" Chen Ye tried to rush over, but was held back by Instructor Gui Chi.

"Don't act rashly! He has weapons we don't understand!"

Short Circuit switched to Chen Ye: "Experiment 07. You are the most successful sample, but also the most unsuccessful—you developed 'self-awareness' and broke free from control. Now, it's time to take you back."

He extended his hand: "Join me. Your cognitive abilities combined with my computational power, we can optimize this world. Eliminate inefficiency, eliminate chaos, eliminate... pain."

Chen Ye stared at him: "By turning everyone into machines?"

"By letting them evolve," Short Circuit said, "humans fear, suffer, and die because they are imperfect. Perfection wouldn't have these things. I'm providing perfection."

"That's not perfection, that's death," Chen Ye said. "No emotions, no choices, no accidents... that's not... that's not living, that's just running a program."

Short Circuit tilted its head, as if pondering this idea: "Emotions are interference in decision-making. Choices are obstacles to efficiency. Unexpected events lead to system errors."

"Your argument cannot refute the data: after mechanization, the unit's work efficiency increased by 300%, the error rate decreased by 99%, and the maintenance cost decreased by 80%."

"But they stopped laughing! They stopped crying! They stopped loving!" Chen Ye roared. "Those 'inefficient' things are the proof of being alive!"

Short-circuit fell silent. Not because it was persuaded, but because it was calculating.

A few seconds later, he said, "I don't understand. Emotional value cannot be quantified, therefore it cannot be included in the optimization model. Conclusion: You are a wrong sample and need to be formatted."

He raised his hand again, and a beam of energy condensed.

Just then, Wang Xiaoming suddenly stood up, his hands injured, but he tightly gripped the broken tube.

"Chen Ye...grab the other end!" he shouted.

Chen Ye instantly understood and grabbed the other end of the catheter.

The conduit connected the two people, and Wang Xiaoming used his last bit of strength to establish a special causal connection—not an attack to short-circuit, but a temporary fusion of Chen Ye's cognitive abilities with his own causal abilities.

"Use my link... to access her processor!" Wang Xiaoming gritted his teeth. "I can't hold on much longer!"

Chen Ye closed his eyes.

Through causal connections, his consciousness flowed backward along the duct, rushing into the short-circuited body's system.

In an instant, he "saw" it.

It's not a visual world, but a world of data flow.

The short-circuited processor contains countless programs running and countless data flowing.

At its core is a continuously rotating decision-making model. The input to the model is sensor data, and the output is action instructions.

There is no emotion module, no moral judgment, only efficiency calculation.

Chen Ye's consciousness rampaged through this data world.

He doesn't understand programming or code, but he understands concepts.

He saw a core instruction in the short-circuit decision model: "Optimize system efficiency and eliminate errors."

This instruction defines all behaviors related to short circuits.

To defeat him, don't destroy the processor—that could trigger self-destruction and affect the entire city.

Instead... rewrite the instructions.

But how can I rewrite it? Chen Ye doesn't have administrator privileges.

Unless... unless it itself becomes a "system error," causing a contradiction in the short-circuited core instructions.

Chen Ye opened his eyes and looked at the short circuit in the real world.

The liquid had risen to their waists, and the pinkish-purple energy of fear began to erode their consciousness.

He had a crazy idea.

"Lin Su!" he shouted, "Use your flames to burn me!"

"What?!" Lin Su exclaimed in shock.

"It's not real burning! It's 'burning' on a conceptual level! With your flames, you 'define' me as a target that 'must be purified'!"

Lin Su understood instantly. She suppressed her pain, raised her hand, and aimed it at Chen Ye.

"Nirvana: Pure Fire!"

Pure white flames enveloped Chen Ye. But the moment the flames touched him, he activated his cognitive blueprint, absorbing and internalizing the concept of the flames' 'purification'.

Now, conceptually, Chen Ye has become a "systemic error that needs to be cleaned up."

This definition, through the causal connection established by Wang Xiaoming, was passed to the short-circuited processor.

The core instructions for the short circuit began to conflict:

Command 1: Optimize system efficiency and eliminate errors.

Command 2: Chen Ye is an error that needs to be purified.

Instruction 3: But Chen Ye is Experiment 07, a precious sample, and recycling is better than destruction.

The three instructions contradict each other, and the processor's decision model begins to calculate in a loop, unable to find the optimal solution.

The short circuit froze. The light in his eyes flickered wildly, and his body began to tremble.

"He's...crashing?" the instructor said.

"No, it's recalculating." Chen Ye stared at the short circuit, "but his model can't handle this contradiction. If it keeps failing to produce a result..."

"It will overload," Wang Xiaoming added. "Like a computer crashing with a blue screen."

The short circuit emitted a mechanical, intermittent sound: "Error...unable to...parse...suggestion...format...convert..."

He looked at Chen Ye, and for the first time, an emotion appeared in his eyes—confusion.

"Why...resist...optimization...when...it could be...perfect..."

Chen Ye walked towards him, the liquid already reaching his chest.

"Because perfection is boring," he said. "Because mistakes bring surprises, surprises bring changes, and changes bring new possibilities. And these possibilities... are what make us alive."

Short Circuit stared at him for a long time.

Then, he made an unexpected move.

He smiled.

It wasn't a warm, human smile; it was a mechanical upturn of the corners of the mouth, revealing a standard, emoji-like smile.

"Data...update..." he said. "The definition of 'alive'...into the model...requires...more...samples..."

His body began to glow, emanating white light from within.

"He's going to self-destruct!" the drill instructor shouted. "Everyone, back off!"

But Short Circuit shook his head: "No... self-destruct... it's... uploading..."

He looked at Chen Ye: "You won... this time. But the testing... continues. I will... continue to observe... and continue to optimize... on the network..."

The white light reached its peak, then suddenly contracted and disappeared.

The short circuit is gone.

All that remained were some ashes and a still faintly glowing crystal—his processor core.

The liquid stopped rising.

The fear conduit begins to dry up and break.

The whirlpool in the shaft slowly subsided.

"Where did he go?" Wang Xiaoming asked.

"He said 'upload'." Chen Ye picked up the crystal. "It means he uploaded his consciousness to the internet. Now he... could be anywhere with internet access."

Lin Su walked over and looked at the crystal: "So it's not over yet."

"It will never end." Chen Ye gripped the crystal tightly. "As long as there are people pursuing that kind of 'perfection,' as long as there is chaos that needs 'optimization,' it will exist."

Instructor Ruler surveyed the surroundings: "But at least, this plan has been thwarted. The Fear Energy Fluid is receding, and all three nodes should be disabled."

The communicator rang; it was "Blinds'" voice: "Confirmed! The energy levels of the sewage treatment plant and television tower have plummeted! The Nightmare Node has been destroyed! City alert lifted!"

The four looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief.

But Chen Ye knew that this was just the end of a battle.

The short circuit is still somewhere in the network.

The religious order is still active. And he himself... still has many problems to face.

He looked at the crystal in his hand, his tired but determined face reflected in it.

The torrential rain is still falling, but the most dangerous part has passed.

They won this game.

But the game continues.

Chen Ye carefully put the crystal away and helped the injured Lin Su to her feet: "Let's go. It's time to go back."

The four returned along the way they came, leaving the underground space to slowly sink into darkness.

In a server room in the city, a backup program automatically started/

A line of text flashed on the screen:

"Test log archived. Subject 07 performed better than expected. Embroidery plan adjusted: 'Emotional variable' analysis added. Next stage, in preparation."

The cursor is blinking, as if waiting for input.

The night is still young.

The battle continues.